Civil Liberties and Civil Rights < Previous Section Table of Contents Next Section > Types of Civil Liberties Overview “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” So wrote Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but his conception of equality was vastly different from our own. Still, the Founding Fathers fought to create a free and equal society, in which Americans were free from religious persecution and other restrictions on their individual liberties. The civil rights movement, which began in earnest in the 1950s, was born when African Americans demanded that they be given equal protection under the law. Their demonstrations set the stage for other groups to begin agitating for new laws as well. Today, we take such freedoms as the right to privacy and freedom of speech for granted. But our civil liberties and rights are the result of many years of agitation and activism. Plus, our conceptions of civil rights and liberties have evolved since

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